Saturday, December 29, 2012

Compass: Buffer will keep Denali's wolves alive and in sight

Published: December 28, 2012

By VIC VAN BALLENBERGHE

It didn't take long for Montana's wildlife commissioners to
establish a buffer just outside Yellowstone National Park's northern
boundary to prevent hunting and trapping of the park's wolves that
sometimes move out of the park. They acted within days of the shooting
of a wolf labeled "the most famous wolf in the world" which followed the
loss of seven others including five wearing radio-collars costing up to
$4,000 each. These animals were part of a large research study of
wolves and their impact on Yellowstone's ecosystem, and were also used
to monitor wolf numbers and their occasional depredations on livestock.
Montana's wildlife authorities recognized that additional losses would
seriously impact research and monitoring of this high profile wolf
population.

But they also knew that loss of the park's wolves
offended thousands of people, many of them visitors to Yellowstone who
treasure the rare opportunity to see and hear wild wolves.

Sadly,
Alaska's Department of Fish and Game and its Board of Game failed to act
similarly when recently faced with a strikingly similar situation
involving Denali National Park's wolves. Last winter the pregnant alpha
female of the Grant Creek Pack was snared just outside the park's north
boundary. This pack was the most commonly viewed wolf pack in Denali
in recent years. They were tolerant of people, denned close to the
park's road, and kept their pups near the road after they left the
den--all necessary in order for park visitors to see them. And see them
they did. There were recent years when these wolves were seen nearly
every day, playing, howling, hunting and travelling.

But in the
summer of 2012 everything changed. Loss of the pregnant alpha female
resulted in no pups being born. As a result, the surviving adults
traveled widely and there were few sightings of them near the road. The
loss of a single wolf cost thousands of park visitors the chance to
view this pack. And it may cost the state thousands of dollars in lost
tourism revenue as Denali is labeled as no longer a good place to
experience wolves.

Our wildlife authorities, unlike their Montana
colleagues, failed to act last spring when petitioned to protect
Denali's wolves. Like Yellowstone's wolves, Denali's are radio-collared
and are part of research and monitoring programs. But our Game Board
deemed it more important to preserve the opportunity of a few trappers
to catch and kill these wolves rather than to preserve their scientific
integrity.

Our authorities have long argued that the loss of a
few wolves outside park boundaries does not affect the park's wolf
population. True enough, but this totally misses the main point--that
these few wolves are critical to maintaining the opportunity of
thousands of park visitors to experience wolves. The events of this
past summer prove this point beyond question.

Tragically, what
happened with the Grant Creek Pack was predicted by those of us who
witnessed the Game Board's actions in 2010. Despite great public
support, the board repealed two existing wolf hunting and trapping
buffers that had been enacted years earlier, this despite a Park Service
proposal to expand one buffer based on several years of data
demonstrating the need. And the board enacted an eight-year moratorium
banning proposals to re-establish the buffers.

Denali's wolves do
not have the large constituency that Yellowstone's wolves enjoy. But
many Alaskans recognize their importance and support measures to protect
them. The Game Board made a serious mistake when it rescinded the
buffers in 2010, and compounded its mistake when it failed to respond to
the loss of the Grant Creek female this year. Will we watch as more
Denali wolves are lost in future years and viewing opportunities are
further reduced, or will we follow Montana's lead and recognize that we
must provide protection for a few key wolves that profoundly affect the
experiences of thousands of park visitors?

Vic Van Ballenberghe is a wildlife biologist and former state Board of Game member. He lives in Anchorage.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone